What’s Next for Your Data Center?

One day, in the not distant future, the pandemic will be far behind us (if only for a time). For data centers that means a return to normal functions. But what will “normal” mean? It certainly won’t be the pre-pandemic normal. For data center managers, whatever the new normal is, it will have to include three critical changes made for the pandemic that should become permanent.

Better planning for emergencies and disasters

Most data centers had some sort of emergency plan ready to go at the start of the pandemic. For the most part, these plans focused on natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, blizzards, and fires.

At the start of the pandemic, many data centers and their partners worked to create plans that would keep communications running and technology managing the world with few lags in service, or the quality of that service. Thousand Eyes tracked the success of these efforts, noting that it wasn’t always perfect, but that the hard work of those providing edge services, public cloud, unified communications, ISPs, etc. helped to keep the world technologically connected when personal connections were on hiatus.

In the new normal for data centers, continuity planning must take into account viral pandemics and manmade disasters, including economic collapse. Events that have transpired-and stressors that have befallen data centers-as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic serve as a roadmap for creating what could be a near-bulletproof continuity plan for data centers.

Increasing capacity before you need it

Data center managers plan-and plan well-for increasing capacity when growth occurs. The pandemic has shown that the way we manage growth, however, needs to change. Demands on services and data centers increased rapidly as cities, counties, and entire states went on lockdown, and demands continued to increase as essential employees were moved to remote work, parents started crisis-schooling their children at home, and traditional universities launched full-scale online alternatives.

A plan for growth that can manage unexpected influxes in demand can ensure the operational efficiency of data centers, whatever happens around them.

The future behavior of consumers and businesses — and the increased role of telework and online communications in our daily lives — should also play a part in the building of a new growth strategy. Technology, while always an epicenter of our lives and our economy, has become the backbone of keeping businesses online, people learning, and families together. That’s not likely to change when social distancing ends.

Keeping your data center clean and well-maintained

If there was one thing highlighted for data center managers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic thus far, it’s whether or not their data centers were clean, and well organized, well structured, and properly maintained.

For those without the benefit of structured cabling, the ongoing maintenance, efficiency, operations, and day-to-day management of data centers can’t have been easy. News stories haven’t covered the losses, trials, and hardships faced by data center managers and workers operating in less-than-optimal environments. What was once just an air circulation issue may have become an overheating emergency with increased demand…and no contractors or engineers to solve it.

In the new normal, structured cabling, a regular maintenance schedule, planned and properly executed upgrades, and regular stress-testing are all a must for every data center, large and small alike.

As we move towards this new normal, where social distancing is a part of expected behavior, and online and telephonic interactions are twice or three times as common as they were even in January of this year, data centers too, will have to change to keep up and to be prepared. Now that we know what is expected and needed both from and in a data center, we can build a new normal that operates at optimal efficiency no matter what happens.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.